John Feehery: Speaking Engagements

The Man Behind Obama

Posted on June 23, 2008

Campaign finance law goes completely over the heads of most Americans.

Giving money to politicians to most people is like giving money to a used-car dealer.You probably aren’t going to get your money’s worth, but why take the chance.

Barack Obama is making the gamble that most people really aren’t going to pay attention to how he and his allies have manipulated the system to their own advantage, crashed through their own assertions, left in tatters their own often stated convictions and left the do-gooders who thought Obama was a different kind of candidate crying on the curb.

He is gambling that most people simply don’t care, and he is probably right.

But it is worth noting Obama’s stunning end-run around the supposed insurmountable Republican money advantage.And it worth noticing who that man is who is standing behind Obama and pulling all the strings

This story was a long time in coming.It all starts with George Soros.

It was George Soros who mounted an improbable campaign to change the campaign finance laws. His Open Society Institute funded the Public Campaign, Common Cause Education Fund, Democracy 21, the Campaign Finance Institute, and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University; a large number of state and regional organizations; and research groups such as the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Grants have also been awarded to academic researchers, constitutional scholarship, bipartisan roundtables, and other efforts.

Soros created an echo chamber, and assisted by the New York Times, the campaign finance mafia passed legislation that destroyed the ability of the political parties to compete with outside, shadowy, unaccountable organizations.

With the political parties hamstrung, Soros then created MoveOn.org with millions of dollars in seed money.MoveOn.org used the Soros money to build a sophisticated netroots organization that rivaled labor unions in their political power.This organization says it is made up of average citizens. But let’s not kid ourselves.You never forget your first five million dollar benefactor.

And now, we have the left’s appointed nominee, Mr. Obama, who decries the viciousness of these so-called 527 organizations , organizations that derived all of their power from the law that Soros passed.

In the days leading up to the Iowa caucus, Obama said:"Right now in Iowa you have candidates who are having millions of dollars spent on their behalf by other groups." "These folks don't have to disclose where they are getting money from. It's completely the Wild West, these 527s and so forth. And that's something that's going to have to be controlled," he added.But his allies helped to create this dynamic.

But if this is the Wild West, it is not the Republicans who have all the six-shooters.It is the Democrats.

The biggest irony is that the Republicans are very bad at the 527 game.When I worked for the House Republican Leadership, they resisted starting 527s because they thought that the courts would find them to be illegal.The Democrats, who played the game much better because they designed the rules, had no such hesitation.

Even today, Republicans simply don’t have the 527 horses that the Democrats have.As CBN put it, “Experts in campaign finances say that conservative or Republican-affiliated "527" independent political committees have raised far less money than such groups affiliated with Democrats.‘The Democratic organizations, through the 15-month point, have raised more than three times as much as the Republican groups -- $87 million to $24 million,’ said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.”

Obama showed not a hint of irony when he said to his supporters in a video that the public campaign financing system allowed "special interests [to] drown out the voices of the American people" and asked his supporters to "declare our independence from a broken system."Obama added that McCain would not stop "smears and attacks" from outside groups that can spend unlimited money.

But the only organization that has embarked on such smears and attacks is the group that George Soros built -- MoveOn.org -- and they have been aiming their very considerable fire at Republicans, especially John McCain.Who can forget the General Betray Us ad, the single most treacherous act by any quasi-political organization since the Second World War?They have followed that up with their nauseating new ad that encourages a mother to use her baby as a political pawn.

Behind this all stands George Soros, a man whose radical agenda include support for drug legalization (included heroin), euthanasia and a variety of other causes.He was convicted of insider trading by the French Courts and was credited with breaking the Bank of England, hurting countless British citizens.

Soros financial hanky panky doesn’t stop there.According to Wikipedia, “in late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, which had been a major target of criticism (for war profiteering) by MoveOn and the Center for American Progress. Soro's critics allege that these organizations suddenly stopped criticism of Halliburton after Soros purchased the stock, and subsequently the stock values appreciated significantly, netting substantial profits for Soros.”

According to Accuracy in Media, “Soros reportedly purchased a major stake in one of Colombia's biggest banks, at a time when the Drug Enforcement Administration, in its study, ‘Colombian Economic Reform: The Impact on Drug Money Laundering within the Colombian Economy,’ was documenting how major drug kingpins were taking advantage of the liberalization of the economy to put illicit drug revenue into legitimate businesses. The report stated: ‘U.S. and Colombian Government authorities have evidence of drug proceeds being deposited in every major bank in Colombia... A Colombian source indicated that many banks and businesses are owned covertly by principal members of the Cali cartel.’’’

Despite his glowing press, George Soros is not a nice guy.He has been convicted of insider trading, he has been fined by American regulators including the CFTC, he has reportedly bought big positions in Columbia banks, and when his organizations MoveOn.org and Center for American Progress drove down the price of Halliburton with repeated attacks sufficiently, he invested heavily in the stock, only to see those attacks magically stop.

And now he has his candidate right where he wants him, ahead in the polls by a significant percentage.George Soros is the man behind Barack Obama.The question today is not how much can Barack Obama control MoveOn.org?The question today is how much control does George Soros and his front group, MoveOn.org, really control Barack Obama?The American people have a right to know.